


pine like it's christmas

by ivermectin



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Coming Out, Episode: s01e11 Roman Holiday, F/F, F/M, POV Vanessa Abrams, Pining, references to a small part of 1x07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29193063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivermectin/pseuds/ivermectin
Summary: She and Dan are kindred spirits, so maybe it’s not that surprising, that she feels the way she does about Serena.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Serena van der Woodsen (background), Vanessa Abrams & Dan Humphrey, Vanessa Abrams/Serena van der Woodsen
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	pine like it's christmas

**Author's Note:**

> if you follow me on tumblr, or have interacted with me, like, ever: you probably saw this coming. i might make a series later... we shall see!

Vanessa offers to help Serena get a Christmas gift for Dan, because, well, Serena is sweet. She’d been surprised to be back and to find that Dan was somehow dating the most popular girl from his school – he’d spent years in that environment, after all, feeling extremely invisible and being treated like he didn’t exist, but then Vanessa had left, and when she’d returned, everything was different.

She hadn’t meant to hurt Dan, but she hadn’t known what to say. It hadn’t been like she had a choice – her parents had moved, and so had she. And she’d _tried_ to write him long emails, she had, but every time she opened a new email to send, she missed him so acutely she could barely write anything. She’d memorised the Humphrey’s landline, but she didn’t call him. She didn’t know what she could say.

And now she’s back, and she’s no longer Dan’s top girl, but she can’t even resent Serena, because she gets it. One evening she’d tried to enter Dan’s room through the fire escape and seen the two of them on his bed, Serena leaning over him and kissing him, her hair gleaming in the light, her hands on his face, unbuttoning his shirt, her hips pressing against his – Vanessa hadn’t meant to see that. But she’d seen that, and she’d wondered, achingly, painfully, as Dan escorted her out of the room, shirt still unbuttoned, a long-suffering expression on his face, how something like that had happened. The most complicated part was that she wasn’t jealous of Serena.

She wanted to be pressed down on a bed by Serena van der Woodsen. She wanted Serena’s hands on her body, Serena kissing her, Serena undoing her clothes and aligning their bodies and making love to her. She wanted – she didn’t even _know_ she could want someone this badly and this painfully. And it’s cheesy, it’s corny, because Serena is her best friend’s girlfriend, and she can’t fuck this up for Dan.

Dan, who cares so much about Serena that it seems to dull his sharpest edges, who seems like an almost different person around her, his smiles coming easier, his eyes brighter. Dan, who has a little smile in his voice when he talks about her. Dan, her best friend, who’s happy in a way he’s never been before, in a way Vanessa’s never seen, all because of Serena.

She can’t mess with that. But when Serena asks about a Christmas present for Dan, and Vanessa offers to help, they talk about Dan, and how much he loves snow. And it hurts more than ever, because whatever Serena is to Dan, Dan is the same thing to Serena. Vanessa has no place here – it doesn’t matter, even if she _is_ in love with Serena. Which is good – it’s endearing, it’s sweet, it’s what Dan deserves. Still, it hurts.

They decide on a DIY gift, cutting snowflakes out of paper. They manage to get Eric, Serena’s younger brother’s help, and he looks at Vanessa and raises an eyebrow like he wants to ask her something but isn’t sure what. She tries not to dwell on it.

Vanessa loves it– sitting there with Serena, the two of them cutting snowflakes out of paper, while they talk and laugh and spend time together. It’s good, being here, even though it hurts, even though they’re talking about Dan and all she can think is, _I want to know how your lip gloss tastes, how it’d feel like to put my hands in your hair._ They have fun, and she understands, all over again, why Dan likes Serena so much. It’s because she’s such a sweetheart.

Then, Blair Waldorf, Serena’s best friend and a completely new genre of pompous from what Vanessa is used to, shows up, and she excuses herself and Vanessa to get some scissors. When they go, Blair ambushes her, tells her that she can see from how Vanessa’s being that she’s still in love with Dan. It’s a ridiculous accusation, and normally, Vanessa would laugh in Blair’s face, but it’s too close for comfort. If she’s acting visibly smitten, it won’t be long before someone connects the dots, and realises it’s not _Dan_ who she’s dreaming of in secret.

She excuses herself and leaves, suddenly ashamed. Serena seems genuinely crestfallen to see her go – that hurts, too. Vanessa wonders if things could’ve been different, if things would’ve been different, if she’d stayed. If she hadn’t left Dan, maybe she wouldn’t have returned to this, maybe she would’ve seen it coming, maybe it wouldn’t have hit her like this, like a punch to the gut, and the self-desecrating shame of it all, because, she is supposed to be happy for Dan. She’s not supposed to resent him for being able to kiss the one girl Vanessa herself wants to kiss.

She goes back to her sister’s place. Ruby and Vanessa have never been really close – they weren’t like Dan and Jenny, or like Serena and Eric. Ruby loved her, that much Vanessa knew, but Ruby was so introverted that she made Dan look like an extrovert. Until she was up on stage with her lesbian punk band, she barely said anything to anyone at all.

Still, it was worth a shot.

“Hey, Rue,” Vanessa says, softly, over dinner. They’ve got themselves a slab of plum cake, and that’s it. She wishes, painfully, that she could be where Dan and Serena are. She pushes the feeling away – they don’t want her.

Maybe her lovesick heartbreak feelings are really easier to spot than she’d reckoned, especially if someone who knows her as little as Blair could see them, so perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised that her sister notices immediately.

“Vanessa, what’s wrong?” Ruby asks.

Vanessa puts her cutlery down, puts her head in her hands. “Does your queer band need more members? Because I think… I think I might be….”

She can’t even say it. Vanessa thinks of herself as resilient, brave as fuck, but she can’t even say it.

Ruby gets up from where she’s sitting, wraps her arms around Vanessa, drops a kiss to the top of her head. It’s strangely maternal, and so unlike Ruby.

“It’s okay,” Ruby says, softly. “Don’t push it, it’s fine to struggle with it. You’re okay, Vanessa. I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

_Dan’s girlfriend is the most incredible person I’ve ever met,_ Vanessa wants to say. _I think, if I let myself spend more time around her, I might end up falling in love with her._

She doesn’t say this; doesn’t say anything. She thinks if she can find a way to tell Dan that she likes girls, maybe she’d feel less alone. Which – she shouldn’t feel alone. Her sister’s been out since she was fourteen, when Vanessa was still eight. But for a long, long time, it’s felt like Vanessa’s world was just Vanessa and Dan. Maybe that’s why everyone thinks Vanessa is jealous of Serena.

But she’s not. Dan is – Dan is so much like her. Maybe that’s why it hurts; girls like Serena are supposed to be out of their league. But she’s dating Dan. She’s probably straight. She’s dating _Dan._

Vanessa doesn’t like feeling jealous of Dan. It’s not even a new feeling – she remembers being at the Loft, seeing how much Alison and Rufus supported and encouraged their children, she remembers thinking how she never got that, remembers wanting that. But then she remembers coming back now, and the way Dan’s eyes had looked a lot older than they should’ve looked, and how he’d mentioned that his mother had left until Jenny brought her back, somehow bitter but also resigned to the bitterness, hurting in a way that Vanessa didn’t know how to help him with.

She and Dan are kindred spirits, so maybe it’s not that surprising, that she feels the way she does about Serena.

Vanessa blinks, her eyes suspiciously wet. She gently presses her fingers against her eyelids, blinks again.

“Ruby,” she says, quietly. “How did you – how did you make your peace with it?”

Ruby gives Vanessa a small smile. “It takes time,” she says, quietly. “And you need to remember not to hate yourself. The problem isn’t with you, Vanessa, it’s with the world. Okay?”

“Okay,” Vanessa says. She bites into the plum cake half-heartedly.

“It’ll work out,” Ruby says, quietly.

_No, it won’t,_ Vanessa thinks. All the same, Ruby means well, so she says, “Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi to me on tumblr @bisexualdanhumphrey where we can yell about serenessa together!!


End file.
